S’mores Cupcakes

This past weekend, I got a new sink in my kitchen!  The old one was ugly and the faucet scared the living daylights out of me.  It was discolored and cruddy and nothing I did seemed to matter—it was a frightening germ haven.  And did I mention the garbage disposal?  You could hear it from the street (when the windows were closed) and it had stopped effectively grinding food.  Yes, a new sink was definitely needed.

So, my husband and I ventured out (with the kids!) to the hardware store and got all of our supplies: stainless steel sink (to replace the brown cast iron sink), stainless steel faucet (to replace the scary white one), and a top of the line garbage disposal (not even comparable to the piece of junk residing in my cabinet).  We were ready to go, except one thing: My husband, while quite handy, does not having much experience with plumbing projects.  Since we wanted to avoid any geysers in the kitchen, we sought out help from our wonderful neighbor.

Wow—he got the project done well, and in a fraction of the time it would have taken my husband.  So it was time for some thank you cupcakes.

S’mores cupcakes are all over the internet right now.  There are all different varieties.  Some have a chocolate crust, graham cracker cupcake and marshmallow crème frosting.  Others have a graham cracker crust, chocolate cupcake, and an egg white based frosting.  Some are garnished, others aren’t.  No matter the recipe, I noticed that they were all rather labor intensive; especially the ones with the egg white frosting (those required candy thermometers and very specific temperatures—yikes!)

So I set out to make an easy and authentic S’mores cupcake.  I started out with a graham cracker crust with a little melted chocolate over the top.  Followed by chocolate cupcakes from a mix.

Then came the fun part!  I moved the cupcakes to cookie sheets and carefully topped them each with a marshmallow (get the good ones so they get nice and puffy!)  Then I placed the cupcakes back into the oven.

Once the marshmallows were nice and gooey, I took them out and quickly patted each one down to cover the cupcake.

The last step was to stick them under the broiler for a minute or two (watch them closely, we don’t want fire alarms going off) for a nice toasty marshmallow topping!  Now that’s a thank you cupcake!

S’mores Cupcakes

An Amy Original

8 graham crackers (about 1 ½ cups of crumbs)

6 tbsp butter, melted

2 tbsp sugar

½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1 Devil’s Food Chocolate cake mix

            Eggs, oil, & water for mix

24 marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line 2 muffin tins with paper liners.

In a food processor, pulse graham crackers until finely ground.  In a medium sixed bowl, stir together graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter.

Spoon 1 tablespoon graham cracker mixture into each cupcake liner.  Press flat with the bottom of a cup.  Bake for 5 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Sprinkle 8-10 chocolate chips on top of each graham cracker crust.

While the crusts bake, mix together the cake mix according to package directions.  Divide cake batter evenly into the cupcake liners on top of the graham cracker crust and chocolate.  Bake about 16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove from the oven.  Do not turn the oven off.

Let the cupcakes stand about 5 minutes.  Once they are cool enough to handle, move cupcakes to a cookie sheet.  Carefully place 1 marshmallow on top of each cupcake.  Return to the oven for 3 minutes, working in batches if necessary.

After 3 minutes, quickly press down on each marshmallow to cover the top of the cupcake.  Turn the oven to broil.  Place the cupcakes in the oven under the broiler.  Leave the oven door cracked and watch the marshmallows carefully, you want them to brown, not burn.  Once the marshmallows are browned, remove from the oven and let cool.

Makes 24 cupcakes


Edited on 4-6-11:
I recently remade these in my mom's oven and the cupcakes came out very tall and cone shaped (originally, mine came out relatively flat).  Because of this, the marshmallows would not stay on top of the cupcakes.  If this happens, simply use a butter knife to cup the top 1/4 inch off of each cupcake so you are able to balance the marshmallows. - Amy

Enjoy!

Amy